‘Tyranny of the Media’: Will New FCC Regs Enforce Majority Rule?

'TYRANNY OF THE MEDIA': WILL NEW FCC REGS ENFORCE MAJORITY RULE?
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Melissa Lafsky]
[Commentary] When fixed costs are large, a market will only produce products that appeal to masses of people, leaving minority groups with fewer or no products geared towards their interests. The high-fixed-costs scenario certainly applies to daily newspapers, and as such, a single market typically has only one major newspaper working to appeal to the largest possible group of consumers. The effect of this scenario, says Wharton economist Joel Waldfogel, is that minority groups are often left in the lurch. “If a market is heavily African-American, the paper targets itself to be more appealing to African-American readers,” Waldfogel said. “If it’s heavily white, the paper targets itself to be less appealing to African-American readers.” So if newspapers are permitted to snap up TV and radio stations in their markets, will they apply the same “grab the biggest numbers” strategy? “It’s hard to say,” Waldfogel said. “With radio, a typical market has twenty or more stations, so not all [of them] go after the big cluster of listeners. With newspapers, there’s direct evidence that owners go after the big mass of readers. Although local TV has not been studied as extensively, there are typically few local stations per market, and they don't seem to go after niches the way radio stations do. That suggests that both entities in a jointly owned group would go after the big mass of audience.” If the FCC opens the door for hungry media magnates to start snapping up outlets in the largest U.S. markets, it seems likely that those outlets serving smaller (i.e., less profitable) groups and interests will be the first to go.
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/tyranny-of-the-media-wi...
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